“Yeah, that’s probably it,” I said.
I made to turn back when Kai grabbed my wrist. “Are you sure?” Some things never changed. Clearly he was still the king of paranoia. If the girl was as disturbed as I was by him touching me, she didn’t show it.
I shrugged. “Do you feel anything?”
His eyes narrowed. An intense look of concentration slid over his face. He was still holding on to me. I swallowed. The last time I’d seen that look on his face, he’d been just about to kiss me.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Kai let go.
Feeling slightly nauseated, I stepped back from the edge and turned towards the door. The girl smiled at me as I came face to face with her. Well, face to chin really. She was almost as tall as Kai. I would bet the last dollar in my manna account that she was a Nephilim.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Astrid.”
Behind her shoulder I could see Sophie watching us from inside the centre. She made a motion like she was going to come out but then Max turned to speak to her. His broad back cut off our eye contact. I took back everything I had thought about him being cute. The silence between Astrid and me stretched out. I allowed myself a moment to scream and rage in my thoughts. This is what happened when you tried to be selfless. It was why nice guys finished last. Then I reminded myself why I’d stepped away from Kai. In any dimension, I would rather he be alive than to be with him and have him ripped away from me.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m –”
“Alessia,” she finished for me, her smile wide. “We all know who you are in Seraphina. No human has ever possessed a demon blade before.”
“There’s always a first time for everything,” Kai said.
“Agreed.” Astrid stood aside to allow me to pass. “Which is partly why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Why are you here?” I tried to make the question as neutral as possible as we entered the centre.
“Your friend’s mother contacted Malachi about a week ago,” Astrid said. “These kinds of petitions require at least two bids of support from current Council members. He was the closest thing you had to a friend.”
She placed a hand on his arm. He didn’t flinch or pull away. The small gesture punched me in the gut so hard I thought I was going to double over. My face must have displayed the emotion because Sophie detached from Max and drew up with me. I wanted to curl into a ball and howl but through sheer stubbornness I kept it together.
Sophie steered me blindly to our seats. Like most things shifters did, their meetings were centred around food. The convention centre had been set up with long banquet tables covered in white linen cloths. A single banner table stretched along the top side of the long tables where the heads of each class of shifters sat, along with Durin, the shifter Council representative.
I felt eyes watching me. When I lifted my head, Durin nodded his. But he was looking at the blade on my back. Everybody was interested in the weapon. They seemed to think it was some kind of omen. I knew for a fact it was. A message I hadn’t been able to get out of my head for weeks.
Nora thought it would be a good idea to bring Sophie and me along to the dinner so that they could put faces to the claim she wanted to make. When I’d first mentioned the fact that there wasn’t a human on the Council, she’d thought it was a great idea. As the days went on, the thought turned into an obsession. When I asked Sophie about it, she shrugged and mentioned something about opening up an old wound. It had sucked for Sophie growing up amongst the supernaturals. There were so few low witches and mages it made things difficult for her. I could only imagine it had been doubly hard for her parents.
Mostly, Sophie and I were just here to make up bodies. Nora and Mani did all of the talking, all of the arguing in private with Duran and Kai at the important guests’ table. To her immense mortification and delight, Sophie and I were allowed to sit with Max and his friends.
My eyes tracked to where Astrid was sitting on the edge of the banquet table closest to where Kai was. She didn’t seem perturbed at all by the fact that she didn’t know anybody else in the room.
Every so often one of the shifters would try and strike up a conversation with her. Most of the boys couldn’t stop staring. Sophie snatched something out of my hand. I turned my head to see her holding my steak knife. Everything here was made of hard plastics because of the shifters’ aversion to silver. I had no illusions about how sharp the serrated edge was.
“You should probably wipe that look off your face,” she whispered. Even that hushed bit of speech drew attention to us. It had been the same in Zambia. Sophie and I had taken to writing notes to each other to make sure no one was listening.
I dropped my head and massaged my face. How did this happen? School hadn’t even started yet and I was already all twisted up inside because of Malachi Pendragon. I’d promised myself this wasn’t going to happen. I was about to reach for my knife again to finish my meal when I caught the faintest edge of darkness imprinted on the polished wooden floor. It floated, disappeared and then reappeared. That shouldn’t have been possible. The way the lights were positioned there was nothing to cast a shadow.
A feeling of cold dread settled into my limbs. Somebody placed
